SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A University of California team said children with special health needs had three times the health care costs of other children in 2000.
Paul Newacheck, from the Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, and his team used data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to examine health care expenditures. A total of 6,965 children under the age of 18 were included in the survey, with 949 identified as having special health care needs.
The special needs children had an average health care expenditure of $2,099 in 2000, while other children had an average expenditure of $628. The special needs patients accounted for 42.1 percent of total medical care costs for children.
The study, published in the medical journal The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, defines children with special health care needs as "those children who have or are at increased risk for a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition and who also require health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally."
